Capcom has issued a dire financial forecast, warning investors that profits for
the year will be about half of previous projections, reports
MCV. They blame "drastic changes in the industry’s market environment," the
"concentration of AAA titles in the hands of few foreign competitors," and their
"delayed response to the shift to digital media in the Home Video Games
business" as contributing factors. They also place blame on outsourced
development, which always seems like a good idea at the time, as they cite a
"decline in quality of titles outsourced to overseas developers," which is
inspiring a shift to internal sources in the future. They also imply that some
current game projects will be cancelled, saying "work in progress in game
software" is being "strictly re-evaluated for business restructuring."

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Wraith wrote on Apr 18, 2013, 09:47:Basically Capcom does not produce good games. Period. All they do is try to over-exploit their existing franchises created by people who knew what they were doing - and they do a poor job of it.

They have some of the most popular franchises around, which doesn't happen if you don't make good games (period).

No. They don't. Not even close. And you really need to pay attention to what I actually said which is that they over-exploit existing franchises created by people who knew what they were doing.

The fact that they'll churn out 23 variations on the 2D Street Fighter franchise to be jumped on by the same minute pack of hard-core fanboys does not mean they have "some of the most popular franchises around". The 2D fighter fan-market is insignificant next to Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty.

Resident Evil 6 was a disappointment,

As was every Resident evil past RE4. A game more than 8 years old, FFS.

but SF vs. Tekken is outstanding

Oh God. Once again, the 2D fighter genre appeals to a hard-core set of fanboys which represent a pretty small market. Nobody cares.

- if marred by a shitty DLC plan. Dragon's Dogma is still my favorite game I played last year, and was a new IP, not a rehash or exploit of an existing franchise.

Mediocre Metacritic scores and global sales of 420,000 or around a million depending on who you believe - it's a flop.

Monster Hunter still continues to be extremely popular.

Only in Japan dude. Only in Japan. The entire Monster Hunter franchise has yet to crack 2 million sales - in total - in the US. Same goes for the rest of the world excluding Japan.

Thrashing a video game company because they make a lot of sequels is a bit silly considering how many of the games we see anymore are sequels no matter who is releasing them.

When your sequel is a bunch of level rebuilds and reskins of the same game mechanics which demonstrate you haven't generated an original idea in decades, then yes - you do deserve to be thrashed for your lack of creativity and inability to adapt to modern markets.

Fact is, Japan developers are being out-innovated and out-produced by US, French and Canadian developers. Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, Halo and Gears of War are the really big players in this marketplace and no Japan-originated property comes close. (Although the COD appeal is purely in production values - its gameplay is about as narrow and uninspired as you can get).

Show me the Capcom property which even comes close to the Assassin's Creed franchise (Franchise sales exceed 51 million units) let alone the 100+ million units of the Grand Theft Auto franchise or the 150+ million units of the COD franchise. You can't because there isn't one.

They're a second-rate publisher who haven't produced an original hit in over a decade. And the market is punishing them for their lack of creativity, originality and their inability to adapt.

It's notable that the same thing is happening to ID who simply refuse to acknowledge that nobody is interested in their simplistic notions of single-player game-play or their ongoing obsession with death-match. A refusal to adapt to the changing marketplace is an inevitable stride down the road to obsolescence.